The PollockPrints tent is barren and the campgrounds are becoming hastily deserted. The sound of sleeping bags being zipped up blends with the tires of golf carts sputtering down dirt roads performing their ritual of last rites over the festival grounds. Some wait patiently for the only remaining port-o-john with toilet paper. Others begin to canvas the remaining open vendor booths searching for anyone still selling cigarettes or caffeinated products. Lor and A.J. drive by one last time in their golf carts to wish us well on our journey back to Chicago. After exchanging contact information and promising to make this escapade an annual adventure, the personnel still realizes they’re on duty as the radio distress calls that seem to never vanish continue to summon the fatigued staff. For many of them, they have been here at the Soo Pass Ranch for days prior to the festival's opening, preparing for this week and some will continue on for another week of the same as Detroit Lakes 3-day Country Music “WE Fest” promises to bring beer drinking, girlfriend stealing, fist fighting fun to the following weekend. These tireless troupers will take inventory over the next few days and have their remaining products available on their website for fans that unfortunately never had an opportunity to stop by a merchandise booth over the demanding four day festival. As Connor and Charity load the remaining skeletal framing of the SlapHappy Drums sign into their trailer for the long drive back to Oregon, Pollock scribes his reminder to the couple to “Keep On Making Sh*t”. His prompt is provided subsequent to his own baptismal and rebirth this week as I observe a revitalized glow of renewal and regeneration that has washed over him. This isn’t the last festival Pollock will be showcasing at and you can bet I’ll be on board next time to document the exploits again.
It’s the end of an extensive, exciting week and Pollock returns one last time to his booth to sign and number his on-site printed edition. There is a light breeze entering from the rear of the tent but there’s an eerie silence compared with the past few days’ poster pandemonium. Determined, Pollock puts pen to paper dutifully authorizing each piece. Previously displayed artwork is packed away and all that remains are stomped out cigarette butts, craft paper strewn about a table and a muslin backdrop dividing the tent with safety pins and binder clips still affixed to it. Voices can be heard from the merchandise booth next door as the occasional consumer inquires regarding the availability of the on-site poster being unknowingly autographed behind the thin white plastic wall to their left. The “Prince of Prints” (as he’s been affectionately dubbed this week by “Lor”, another local shakedown street coordinator and general merchandising manager) holds reign over the pen, occasionally pausing to flick a dead mosquito dried in the still slightly damp oil-based ink as the stack slowly continues to dwindle.
Jason Kaczorowski (far right) working on rolling posters for distribution with the Lake Sallie General Store crew.
Photo by Jim Pollock (above)
There’s still so much to see and do and it feels like we’re just now – on the last day of the festival – beginning to stretch our legs.
We proceed to the VIP tent and realize they’ve been offering up complimentary food and beer all weekend. Where’ve we been? Before departing the VIP tent, we gulp down a couple beers while enjoying the live backstage entertainment. I’ve been fascinated by the ice cream truck rumored to have been slinging 2,000 bars of free ice cream backstage all week. Do you know the Ice Cream Man? Check out the site http://www.icecreamman.com/ for his inside scoop.
The weekend’s headliners were just plugging in on the main stage and the anticipating initial roar of the crowd was an early indication what an amazing night of music we were in for.
I’m photographing approximately 5 feet from former founding Grateful Dead member Bob Weir and his band Ratdog as he opens the evening with a wailing jam into “Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Liberty” and on into “She Says” before the pit is cleared and we are ushered away from the stage. I don’t recall ever pulling the camera away from my face aside from reloading memory cards or quickly changing lenses. The swell of the crowd meshes with the movement of the music as I pack my gear and am beckoned onto the VIP tent’s massage tables. The long weekend has taken its toll on my lower back transporting gear around constantly. I am soon passed out, face down on a table being kneaded and worked as Weir and band perform “Tennessee Jed > Cassidy > Lazy River Road”. Getting a massage while listening to Grateful Dead tunes being performed live only a few hundred feet away is an experience I can’t highly recommend enough. Simply as relaxed as I could’ve become, I am the last client of the evening and me and my therapist are telling tales from our hometown on a couch in the VIP lounge. She’s from Lawrence, Kansas – home to the Wakarusa Music Festival. She tells me about a time when she was giving Phish’s Mike Gordon a massage but continued to call him by the wrong name throughout the treatment. I promise to keep in touch for another massage if we cross paths in Kansas next year.
The first set comes to a close with a “Watchtower” tease out of “Lazy River” and into “Bird Song” which melds into a “Big Railroad Blues” which featured Warren Haynes on guitar & vocals.
The second stomped in with “Mexicali Blues” followed by “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall”. “Milestones” proceeded into “Lady with a Fan” on into a presumed “Terrapin”. “Come Together” went back into a “Bird Song” reprise then on into a “Cassidy” reprise followed by a set closing, crowd pleasing “One More Saturday Night” all also featuring Keller Williams on guitar & vocals. With an encore showcasing “Slipknot!” again into “Franklin's Tower”, by the time the American flag came waving on stage during “U.S. Blues”, the only thing left to do was blow up the sky with fireworks and start gearing up for next year’s 6th annual 10,000 Lakes Festival.
Connor & Charity Hopkins' (SlapHappy Drums) hand-crafted creation doodled by Pollock being taken backstage to have Keller Williams autograph it. It was later raffled for charity.
Friday was crunch day and Pollock knew he had to finish printing the last of the final color so they could be signed, numbered and tubed by Saturday afternoon. The booth was brimming with smiling faces of new friends. Folks had traveled from all over the world to attend 10,000 Lakes and Pollock seemed magnetized to the Japanese attendees who were as fascinated by his technique as he was of their culture.
The highlight of the afternoon for me was escaping the booth for a bit to take a dip in an isolated nook I had heard about through whispers from revelers returning in bathing suits from the secluded woods of Lake Sallie’s campgrounds. Rumor had it that if you walked far enough into the forest, hung a left at the fork in the road, crossed the clandestine bridge and remembered the password to inform the gnome (just kidding) that you’d be rewarded with a stealth swimming hole perfect for perching among the rocks amid the flowing waters that acted as nature's own whirlpool. The payoff was worth the long hike - Sunset off a beautiful lake, a refreshing plunge to awake the senses and a moment of tranquility after a constant week of working around the clock.
Pollock remained at the booth printing until nearly 2am opting to miss the evening's headlining performers Moe and the String Cheese Incident in pursuit of finishing in time to have his Saturday free to make the rounds and talk to other artists at their respective booths.
As the moon poked out from behind the evening clouds occasionally, the only other life on Sallie’s Shakedown Street was exhausted vendors. As I broke down the booth I caught a glimpse of this fire juggler off in the distance performing for the sake of illuminating the early morning sky.
Still riding the high from his birthday, Pollock set off early in the morning to tackle the first pass of his second color of Blue.
Many fans recall seeing Pollock print portions of his first pass of red both Friday at his open studio show and Sunday during his appearance at the Flatstock 13 poster convention in Chicago’s Union Park at the Pitchfork Music Festival. What many don’t know is that the entire run of approximately 75 prints was actually left behind mistakenly at the studio during late night, last minute packing and so Pollock was forced to print all 100 prints on property at the event. What some also don’t realize is that since the dimensions of the press aren’t compatible with the format of the stock, not to mention his bookbinding press was never originally intended for producing posters, he is required to guide each stamping through the press a minimum of 4 times. If the ink doesn’t lie properly in some spots, reapplying is required and the process can last up to 6-8 more times before only laying a single color to dry. Multiply that by two for the number of colors and then by 100 based on the edition and you begin to see the fascination collectors felt standing around watching Pollock toil over his craft. To produce the run of only 100 posters, the artist had to design and carve the two linoleum blocks which took upwards of one week alone. Given the first pressing that was accidentally left in Chicago upon departure, Pollock intensely labored over the project screwing that antique crank of his cast iron bookbinding press up and down over 2,000 times. It was no wonder collectors bought up every print he released immediately and the first one to hit the eBay’s aftermarket (during the actual festival run no less) sold for nearly 10 times its original price. The last time Pollock printed on site at a music festival was ten years prior at the band Phish’s “Great Went” festival in Limestone, Maine. The highest recorded sale for a Pollock hand-pressed poster produced on-site with his similar signature robot theme at the Great Went (according to expressobeans.com) is $6,600.00, sold on February 1st, 2001. Currently that poster, which is also produced in a limited edition of only 100, currently averages $5,443.73 in the auction aftermarket. Pollock’s other poster produced at that event, the infamous Great Went “Walking Fish”, currently averages at $4,840.62, again with only 100 produced on-site.
The booth was abuzz all day with excited investors returning to see the final color laid on paper. Though the original marker rendered artwork was on display, the final product had not been produced yet and folks were honestly purchasing merely on speculation and what had been created from the first block during the original sale Wednesday.
Pollock had his own share of celebrity appearances at the booth over the weekend. Thursday saw visits from members of The Grasshoppers, Mr. Blotto and Wookiefoot.
Pollock attacked by wookies!
Grandma practicing his Wookie-Fu!
After brisk sales all afternoon, I savored the thought of sneaking away to photograph the evening's Main Stage headlining performance of Chicago’s Umphrey’s McGee and a late night set from 11:30pm until 1:30am featuring the Disco Biscuits on the opposite Field Stage. Alas we unfortunately made it back to the R.V. just in time to stash some stock and catch the last few notes of Zappa Plays Zappa set from 6-8:30. After tossing on a hooded sweatshirt and making my way through a maze of backstage barricades, I was soon standing in the pit with seasoned journalists, bloggers armed only with point-and-shoot cameras and professional photographers capturing the energy in the air within a few feet of performers above on pedestals.
Umphrey’s McGee projected an all-out assault on everyone’s senses, tearing through over 2 hours of material in one intense set. After seeing the band since 1998, this might possibly been the most determined I’ve heard the band perform. For fans in the know, their setlist featured:
Their encore of “Nemo” into “Wizard Burial Ground” and back into “Nemo” left people staggering away that night only to be battered back into a musical oblivion by the Disco Biscuits who’ve toured consistently with the boys from Umphrey’s McGee recently on their Trancegression 2007 Festival. The two acts are respectively at the top of their genre and bring their A Game to the stage with every performance. And while we're on the subject, Pollock produced limited edition posters and handbills for both acts New Year’s Eve shows this past season.
I met journalist Brian Heisler and freelance photographer Tobin Voggesser in the VIP skybox during the latter portion of the Umphrey’s McGee set. Heisler took his opportunity seriously and was sharply honed on the action exploding from the stage. Heisler, a career Research Analyst who has been seeing Umphrey’s for nearly a decade like myself, was as impressed as I at their growth and energy on the stage this evening. Tobin Voggesser and I talked shop about photographing acts on tour and he was eager to capture the lights shining from the stage later that evening from the Disco Biscuits. I met up with Pollock who had been intermingling through the lawn section and introduced him to Tobin and Brian who immediately scheduled an interview for the following morning at the booth intended to appear on jambase.com.
Pollock with Brian Heisler & Tobin Voggesser in the VIP skybox
A raucous evening with the Biscuits featured crowd pleasing favorites such as “Save The Robots”, “Svenghali” and a truly bizarre escape from “Crickets” into “Bazaar Escape” back into “Crickets” into “Orch Theme”.
I was walking away from the front of the stage to capture some views of the band from behind their audience when they pitched into their popular jam “Caterpillar”. Nearly an hour later after emerging from a food stand nourished and about ready to get some rest, the band was segueing back into the tune, closing the set with “Story of the World” and a powerful encore of “Highwire”.
